Burglars broke into a Vodafone site near Basingstoke in the UK and nicked enough gear to disconnect hundreds of thousands of users.

Services were gradually restored throughout the morning, although many customers said they were still disconnected well into the afternoon. Quite how burglars got into such a clearly mission critical building and nicked stuff while the site was still live is anyone's guess. It appears that the burglars were reported to have smashed their way into the building using sledgehammers so that is not your normal attack on systems.

A Vodafone's spokeswoman said it was a "fairly serious incident", saying nothing of its kind had occurred before. The stolen gear was computer and network hardware, "had serious value" and had not been sabotaged but "carefully removed."